Here's another shot demonstrating the blatant disregard for pedestrians exhibited by drivers in Brockley Cross.

The removal van is once-again sitting on the pavement, while over on the other side of the road, The Tea Factory's pavement (which for some reason was never finished properly) is squatted on by a mixture of private and commercial vehicles. As some readers have already noted, this happens all the time and forces pedestrians on to the (busy) road.

Nick, I thought you were genuinely above this kind of petty nonsense - not that I'm dismissing it, but surely it's the domain of flat-cap wearing, jack-russell walking, raincoat wearing brockley-itteratie rather than a City(ish) PR guru is it not?

Nick has highlighted a very serious issue. The pavement outside the tea factory well, isn't a pavement but more a car park.

I actually have a friend who lives there whos visitors park on the pavement, when I asked why he allowed them to do this, the reply was: well, where else are they going to park? I.e. there is no-where.

This problem is only going to get worse with each new development. There are no new parking spaces being created, just wait and see what happens when the new block of flats on Mantle road goes up.

I expect a fatality, I wonder when the council are going to stand up and listen to the areas residents.

"Nick, I thought you were genuinely above this kind of petty nonsense - not that I'm dismissing it, but surely it's the domain of flat-cap wearing, jack-russell walking, raincoat wearing brockley-itteratie rather than a City(ish) PR guru is it not?

Or am I confusing my stereotypes?"

I never udnerstand this sort of silly attitude. What exactly do you want to see articles about Anon? Genocide in Africa? North Korea's arms race? The latest EU legislation? Granted, sometimes comments may turn to bigger picture issues, but essentially this is a local blog about Brockley. Brockley is not at the hub of international affairs and about the most exciting thing that you're going to find happening is transgression of conservation area rules, closure of a local deli or the disrepair of a wall. If you want major articles about international affairs take a look at the Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, The BBC etc websites....

Perhaps.... On the subject of the "domain of flat-cap wearing, jack-russell walking, raincoat wearing brockley-itteratie", what's the latest on the Wickham Rd wall? I haven't past that way recently. Last I looked, the whole wall had been pulled down and the bricks seemed to be chucked in a pile, so it didn't actually look like they were actually going to attempt rebuilding it properly with the original stock....

Trying to squeeze through a narrow gap like the ones Nick is showing is no joke when you're pushing a pushchair, especially a double one, and especially if the road you have no choice but to venture onto is a busy one with fast-moving traffic. Must be even worse for wheelchair users and people with sight problems.

As for the 'where else are they going to park?' question, whatever happened to finding a parking space somewhere it's both legal and safe, and walking a short distance?

There's a situation now where the only roads where illegal parking is punished are the CPZ areas and all else is basically lawless.

And I also find peculiar the arrangement within CPZ areas where there are these people in uniform constantly crawling the streets and only interested in illegal parking, you could commit murder in front of them and they wouldn't have anything to object to that.

I don't know what the rules are on Drakefell Rd regarding parking but just about every car has two wheels on the pavement. But, if people didn't park like that then you wouldn't have much space to get down it in a car anyway, certainly not both ways (this would be ideal in my opinion).

So, pedestrians have to walk single file on what little pavement is left dodging car wing mirrors and hoping you don’t come across someone unloading their weekly shop. God knows how people in wheelchairs or prams cope with it.

If you are reading this Lewisham, it is time to make Drakefell Rd a one way system. Ta.

I'm going to try to look on the bright side here - but, being an essentially grey creature by nature, it's often rather difficult to do so. After much self-badgering, I've chosen to optimistically conclude that this inversion of affairs could finally lead to me actually graduating to cycling on the road. I recall the utter dejection I encountered when I initially became simply too old to legitimately rattle my boneshaker along the pavements of Brockley. A blossoming moustache dictated time was I started boneshaking alongside the horseless carriages. Yes: on the road.

However, if the multitude of various motorised vehicles now want to exchange the vast, well-laid roads for the cracked and waving pavements - I, for one, am biting their hands off at the wrist in response to their ludicrously generous offer.

I've placed my razor on charge as I type this, and I'm off to untie ol' Betty from the support beam in my garage and I plan on giving her chain a right Royal oiling, I don't mind telling you. Yes, it's been a while; it'll be good for my heart to get back in the saddle. If worst comes to worst, I might feasibly be left strolling down the bus-lane, along Lewisham Way, to the closest shop which sells puncture-repair kits. But, even that certainly beats actually sitting on a bus alongside what laughably passes as the general public in those quarters.

Yes, all things considered - and I happen to have thoroughly considered all of them - things have certainly taken a turn for the better. I might even consider coming out of retirement and offering my services as a part-time walking instructor. I have after all been walking, on-and-off, since the age of one. It seems a waste not to share the vast walking experience I have amassed.

I think the balance of articles on the site is pretty good - some things seem pretty trivial to me, but I daresay if they were happening right outside my house (falling down walls etc.) I'd be glad to see someone taking an interest.

Nick, you are fast on the way to becoming Brockley's Most Powerful Person (damning with faint praise, I know, but still...) If you don't have one already you should think about acquiring a fluffy white cat to stroke while you ponder world domination.

Typical. The instant genuine, pressing issues begin to be discussed – some wise-Alan leaps up to lower the tone.

Walking is no joking matter, son(daughter). As a part-time flaneur and fulltime general walker, I find these road related reversal revelations rather refreshing. I’m certainly looking forward to the thrilling perspective my new vantage point will afford me; both as part-time flaneur and fulltime general voyeur. Sure, we’ve all slowed our pace and had a sly butcher’s betwixt our neighbour’s privetted frontage, more than once, as we idle home. But how many of us can honestly say we’ve ever had the pleasure of standing in the middle of the road outside our neighbours’ houses, without the fear of being caught out by a steaming milk float? For the facetious among you, - the very likes of anonymous 19:24 - I’m fully aware we’ve always been able to do this in the dead of the night.

If this is such an issue why isn't it reported to the Council? Parking on the footway is an offence in London except where exemptions have been made to the GLC Act 1974 and suitable parking bays are marked on the highway. Parking attendants are able to enforce this offence. Parking on the footway obstructs disabled people and the Council must fulfill its commitment to the Disability Discrimination Act.

But it's not about law enforcement. Traffic Wardens get much more money for the council in fines and the private contactors they work for in fees by prowling around CPZs and booking people without a resident permit or who have overstayed ten minutes on a meter and such contraventions are presumably pre-set on their ticket issuing machines. Elsewhere they would have to be trusted to be knowledgable and use thier initiative and you can't have people doing that.

I refer the honourable ministress to the Cruelty to Animals Act 1885, the specific forbiddance of baiting animals expressed in the Protection of Animals Act 1911, and, perhaps most tellingly, the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. I'd then like to remind the ministress of the foul works undertaken, despite these definitive laws, by the dishonourable ministers, 'Bedlington Terrier' and 'Dogs don't get caught, the owners do'.

As Dickens so sagely observed, "the law is an ass.". Ironically, in this particular case the problem appears to be exacerbated by the fact that those vans don't appear to have any junk in their trunk.

This is one large building site for what was one small hole in the wall.

All the existing wall has been taken down. One metre deep trench fill footings have been excavated and await their concrete fill.

Some tree roots have been damaged but the contractor appears to be doing his best to work around and protect these.

Lastly a couple of pallets full of the old bricks have been cleaned and sorted but they are going to have to bring in a lot more second hand stocks if they are going to build it back up to its original height.

Although this doesn't change the main argument - which I support - that Brockley Cross illegal parking is dangerous (and the sub argument that major developments, like the Tea Factory ought to come with parking) - when clicking on the photo it looks like there is a parking ticket on the van under the windscreen wiper?

I don't know about the tea factory, but it is common place for new high density developments to be given planning on the basis the residents will not have parking and will not be allowed to have a permit for any local parking. They assume that if you are close to a rail network you can use public transport. Even though it doesn't run through the night and is already packed. There are some 7000 new residents planned for the area around Lewisham station and very few parking spaces. The reason it is okay is because they are close to the travel terminus. This apparently is also the reason that the residential area is not one, but has now become the town centre.

Don't wish transport improvement to Brockley or you too will be a town centre and the reason it is okay for 9 plus tower blocks.

My bug bear is not so much abandoned wheelie bins, but ones in full use left on the footpath. Why don't people put them in their front gardens (they usually have them) or the council provide them with bags to put out on bin day! I have often had to take to the road with push chair with combined wheelie bin and bad parking in area. And even if I didn't keep them on you own property, footpaths are for pedestrians.

You can actually report to the Council those that leave their wheelie bins on the pavement. People are expected to move them back in their front garden at the earliest opportunity and there are heavy fines for failing to do so.

"I'd love to have been a fly on the wall at that meeting. You can just imagine them all sitting round, sipping their Fairtrade coffee and nibbling their ethically sourced mung-bean snacks, when someone pipes up: 'What are we going to do about the bargees?' "

Sounds like Headhunter or Brockley Nick could have been in attendance...!

Well, Nick Griffin is a Louis Farrakhan fan. But that's an entirely different bucket-of-beans - isn't it? Besides, Tresse-James is correct in asserting the patrons of Bermondsey pubs aren't necessarily all racists. Even the few that may remain so have no doubt upgraded their racist criteria since the 70's.

That kind of retro-racism is more likely to be fashionably (ironically) espoused by Goldsmith's students than Bermondsey boozers. I can picture a bouffant-headed waif strolling along Wickham Road in his spray-on skinny-jeans and Alf Garnett graffiti-stenciled t-shirt, whilst wittering on to his clan of clones about his favourite 80's cartoon. Ironically, of course. This road-pavement reversal is a boon for the studentry too - they can nick traffic cones directly from the pavement (road) outside their halls and conveniently put them back out, like wheelie bins, when they've sobered up in the morning.

Which reminds me, Max ("You can actually report to the Council those that leave their wheelie bins on the pavement") - you can now put your wheelie bins out in the middle of the road (pavement). There will be more than enough space to pram and power-walk around them, now.

As my grandfather would always grunt: "all humans are related, _____, but not all badgers." Frankly, I haven't a clue what he was on about; perhaps it had something to with race - who knows? What I will say is that Badgers are generally with Wacko on this front: "it don't (sic) matter if your black and white."

I'm not sure what species, er, specious reasoning you've used to conclude I'm related to Hugh - I'd simply like to say I'm not. I presume you're just attempting to butter him up with sheer flattery towards some particular ends. Perhaps you want to borrow his potato-masher, Mousey, or perhaps you want Bodger to ineptly fit out an entire new kitchen for you. Whatever it is you're playing at - leave me out of it.

There's no shortage of gas here, I suppose (no, that isn't a mung bean gag). Though, in all seriousness, I would say that alleging an innocent, hard-working (retired) newcomer to your shores is disease-ridden and deserves gassing, doesn't reflect too well on yourself or the area.

Besides, once our dens are set you've got next to no chance of turfing my sort out...the council are probably building my family and I a safe-haven at the bottom of your garden as I type this.

One man's split-level apartment is another man's maisonette. Don't label me, or my arrogant abode. Besides, I specifically said my den was set to appease your sort...but you're never happy, are you? How many 'sets' have you seen that are equipped with a four-oven deluxe Aga? Exactly.

Badgered

PS. I'll have those forms back to you by Tuesday...I'm just doing a touch of blacking out.

I've been blacking out - not up. Christ, you lot really are showing your true colour(s), aren't you? Besides, it's snide, heartless comments like that that have us honest badgers googling 'anal bleaching kits' and leave us fumbling for excuses to feed to our lesser-halves as to why we've got pornstars by the pixel-load staring back at us from our monitors.

On a more serious note, I might just scratch another Badger Housing Claim onto that new mural near the station and let the government take care of it again. I hate paperwork at the best of times, on a friday evening it's...

That's right, Anonymousey - I'm the one that's on the powdered mash. Let's all keep ignoring the fact that the proprietor of this gaff arrogantly added an iambic foot to a well loved piece of poesy - in my set, at least - transforming a perfectly wholesome Alexandrine (iambic hexameter, if you prefer) into a bawdy and tastless fourteener.

Anon 13.03 really? You're really quoting Littlejohn? That is a damning evidence of how desperate and witless the 'mung bean' vein of humour is. I mean, Littlejohn is to Charlie Brooker what the Half Hour News Hour was to The Daily Show.

I live in the tea factory building, and return home every night to find only one vehicle consistently remains from the many that occupy the pavement during the day,and that is a black audi. I am guessing therefore that the other vehicles are parked there by people visiting Brockley, or using the station. In any case, most Tea Factory residents have no need to park in front of the building, and the spaces should be made loading-only as soon as possible.

Following up on the Brockely Cros van hire issue, although in some ways its handy having a van hire place close buy, I have two big issues with this place:

1) what's the deal with a van hire company operating without any parking space for their numerous vehicles - hence the congestion,illegal parking etc.

2) and second the service at this place is awful - expect at least an hours wait for picking up a van and then, as happened to me, you may just be told that no vans were available until late afternoon (having booked one for 8.30am on a Saturday). Nice.